Good Morning!!!! 65F @ 3:30AM. Partly to mostly cloudy. High 88F. Winds light and variable.
Couldn't sleep, so decided to shop for hand sanitizer and other disinfectants at McMaster-Carr. Almost all of these items are marked as out of stock, not taking orders. But did find ingredients for the DIY WHO sanitizer, of which I already had glycerine, so those are on order.
Were those wild pigs in the photo, David? How do you plan on keeping them out of the garden?
Here's hoping your Walmart order is complete, Bird.
Glad the lean to surgery came off without a hitch, Bill.
I hope the black snake finds its way out of the decoy bag before duck season comes back in, Wng!
I hope your internet improves before duck season comes back, too, Eric!:laughing:
Yesterday was a very lucky day, years in the making. Or should I say days in the making, years in the finding. While the oats were cooking, and after my usual five minutes of hanging upside down, I once again searched the room where I last remember seeing the cover for the Vanagon instrument panel. I'd made it up from a factory cover, and half another one that I'd sawn in half and glued on the side, the intent being to extend the original to cover the new radio, which was too tall to fit in the factory location. I'd searched that room countless times over the years, only to come away empty handed, but decided to do it again anyway. Not under the bed, not in the boxes on the top shelf of the closet, not even in the refrigerator that will someday find its way into the Vanagon. But wait, what's that, behind one of the bicycles in the closet? Could it be? YES! It was the cover! Standing on one end, mostly hidden by the bicycle frames, safe and sound, but as it turned out, not somewhere I wouldn't lose it.:confused2::cool2: Even better, with only a small adjustment, it fit just fine with the radio installed, something I'd only been able to mock up before with a piece of foam. So the day was already off to a very good start, and I was tempted to just call it quits right there.
But instead, I did some more reading on the PG&E bankruptcy and fire survivors settlement fund. The current arrangement (I hesitate to call it an agreement because the majority of the fire survivors I've talked to think it's a lousy deal for them) funds payouts to hedge fund managers, big banks, and insurance companies with up front cash payments by the end of this year. It also provides state sponsored coverage of any additional losses fromfuture fires caused by PG&E's negligence, and opens the door for PG&E to exit their current chapter 11 bankruptcy. Fire survivors, however, will be forced to settle for a cash payment that the company has already admitted they'll have difficulty covering, and an allotment of company stock that now encompasses more than half of the settlement, all at some as yet to be defined time in the future. The price being used to value the stock portion of the settlement is now over twice the current closing price, the idea being that the market will reward PG&E for recovering from the bankruptcy. More than likely, though, the market will kick the stuffing out of the stock as soon as the first wildfire is kicked off by another downed power line, and the fire survivors will be left with a closet full of worthless paper. Their settlement is also being held in trust, such that the stock can't be sold until the institutional investors that also hold PG&E stock have had a chance to sell their allocation. That alone will dilute the stock value, further jeopardizing the ability of the fire survivors to put their lives back together. There's a vote going on now, which closes mid May, where the fire survivors have the opportunity to say yay or neigh to the current plan. If they say neigh, PG&E may be forced to come up with a better deal, or the bankruptcy judge could force the current deal. Almost all of the lawyers that are representing the fire survivors are advocating for the current deal; they only get paid if there's a settlement and half a loaf is better than none. But the survivors are starting to see that what little they get out of the current plan won't do them much good, and worse, it leaves PG&E free from liability for future negligence, with no incentive to change their corporate culture to one that is safety based instead of profit motivated. The next three weeks will be interesting indeed.
I laid up four more panels of the sound deadening material, using the Barge cement that I hope will not come apart, as these will be used in the doors and walls where gravity will have something of a de-laminating effect. I'd already had trouble with another panel stuck together with Scotch 77 spray on glue, so I hope this stuff is more durable. It should be for what it cost!
Today, if I don't get interrupted, those panels will find their way into the driver and passenger doors, and if there's any left, onto the walls below the windows in the back. I'm on the last roll of the vibration damping material, maybe four or five panels worth left.
Last clue. Two of you have been very close, but not quite all the way there...
